Michael Rothenberg, Editor
Photo by Terri Carrión
Born in Miami Beach, Florida in 1951, Michael Rothenberg has been living in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past 37 years. He is co-founder of Shelldance Orchid Gardens in Pacifica which is dedicated to the cultivation of orchids and bromeliads. He is a poet, painter, songwriter, and editor of Big Bridge Press and Big Bridge, a webzine of poetry and everything else. In 2011 he and Terri Carrion co-founded the global poetry movement 100 Thousand Poets for Change.
His songs have appeared in Hollywood Pictures' Shadowhunter and Black Day, Blue Night, and most recently, TriStar Pictures' Outside Ozona. Other songs have been recorded on CDs including: Bob Malone's The Darkest Part of The Night (Caught Up in Christmas) and Bob Malone (Raydaddy's Blues), Difficult Woman by Renee Geyer, Global Blues Deficit by Cody Palance, The Woodys by The Woodys, and Schell Game by Johnny Lee Schell.
His poetry books and broadsides are archived at the University of Francisco, and are held in the Special Collection libraries of Brown University, Claremont Colleges, University of Kansas, the New York Public Library, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis, and UC-Santa Cruz.
He is currently living in the redwoods.
His most recent collection of poems is Indefinite Detention: A Dog Story (Ekstasis Editions 2013) and Murder (Paper Press, 2013) My Youth As A Train published by Foothills Publishing in September 2010.
Earlier collections of his poetry include:
CHOOSE
Big Bridge Press, 2009
Unhurried Vision
La Alameda/University of New Mexico
Press, 2003
Grown Up Cuba
IL Bagatto Press, Amsterdam 2003
Monk Daddy
Blue Press, 2003
The Paris Journals
Fish Drum, Inc, 2000
Favorite Songs
Big Bridge Press, CA,
1990
Man/Woman, a collaboration with Joanne Kyger
Big Bridge Press, CA,
1988
Nightmare Of The Violins
Twowindows Press, CA,
1986
What The Fish Saw
Twowindows Press, CA,
1984
He is also the author of the novel Punk Rockwell (Tropical Press, 2000).
Editorial projects include:
The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen
Wesleyan University Press, 2007
Way More West, Selected Poems of Edward Dorn
Penguin Books, 2007
David's
Copy, Selected Poems by David Meltzer
Penguin Books. 2005
As Ever,
Selected Poems by Joanne Kyger
Penguin Books. 2002
Overtime,
Selected Poems by Philip Whalen
Penguin Books 1999
